February 11, 2007

The one major illusion of a cubicle is that it affords the occupant privacy. Some of the walls are metal, some walls have a faux burlap wrapping that makes it easier to tack up such personal notions as photos, lists, calendars and whatever else makes the occupant feel at home. But you can still hear the person in the next box. If you are average height, you can see over the walls into the next work space. And, even though the cubicles have a semi-door entry way, nothing closes or moves to afford any sense of being in your own office. There is no such thing as privacy in a cubicle.

But they want you to think there is. Most companies will orchestrate some type of white noise in the office to drown out the voices next door. Some managers will stand outside of a cubicle listening to their employees conversations. But we know better.

The last cubicle farm I worked in was predominantly filled with females. As all good cubicle farms are, this one was centered in the office. Offices that had windows, walls and doors surrounded the cubicles and were all occupied by men. Not one woman sat in an office. These coveted offices were reserved for the guys who sold the most. Even though some of them spent their days golfing with clients or watching the stock market on their PC's, the offices were reserved for them. They could close their doors to have private conversations, catch up on their Fantasy Football or check out some online T&A before office hours.

I was particularly annoyed with the lack of personal privacy in my cubicle. I made it home while it needed to be but I absolutely hated when people would come into it while I was on the phone. Whether I was talking with clients or the call was personal, it was bad form to come in and listen to my conversations. One salesman would come in, sit down on my desk and wait for my call to end. Not more than a foot away from my torso, he would listen to everything I would say. Not too surprising for him as this was the same guy who would spend his mornings at the fax machine reading all the faxes and then would deliver them to our desks. It was common practice for me to cover the phone and remind him that I was on the phone; that I would be more than happy to come see him when I was done. I would turn my back and ignore him. Nothing worked.

Nothing worked until I got my rear view mirror. I positioned it on the base of my computer screen. I could see whoever came into my cubicle and then at that time decided if the conversation needed to be ended or could continue. It wasn't long before more women in the office started seeking out rear view mirrors.

Worse than the desk sitter was the cubicle stomper. He would come into my cubicle, see that I was on the phone and then stomp his feet until he got my attention. Stomp. His. Feet. He would stomp them like a three year old child that had been told he couldn't have any cookies before dinner.

The note passer. This is the guy that feels his issues take prevalence over any issue that his female colleague has. This particular male colleague would come into my cubicle and throw notes in front of my face. Notes that read "Urgent. Get off the phone." Fearing the worst, I would get off the phone and immediately inquire about his emergency. His client needed a question answered. His client was calling too much. I told him that unless one of my children was injured and the school was trying to reach me, no one interrupted my calls.

Sometimes I look back at those intrusions into my work world and laugh. But most times I look back on them and realize how the corporate structure promotes the intrusion yet does nothing about the subsequent bad behaviour.

February 07, 2007

Everyone farts. We all know that. But why do men think it is okay to fart in their cubicles? I will never understand why most men think that farting at the office, let alone the cubicle situated right next to yours, will go unnoticed. Maybe the problem is that some men behave at work just like they would at home (huge discussion for another day and another diary). I did some searching for a scientific study that would shed some light on this crazy phenomenon but I wasn't successful. What I do know is that most men do it; most women don't. Perhaps the gas in a cubicle zone has become so pervasive that it now qualifies as a "hazard to your health" from flatulent exposure.

I went to work for one company that was in the middle of an office re-location. The temporary offices were situated in a large strip center, complete with a center section of cubicles. I was assigned a seat in a cubicle right next to the temporary co-ed bathroom. Talk about gas! I was exposed to gas from colleagues going in, colleagues coming out, and, the scent of nose-hair-burning gases after the bathroom was used. The only word that comes to mind to adequately describe this scenario is nauseating. I lasted there one week. Not just in the cubicle but in the job. I resigned; I couldn't take it anymore.

Years later I encountered some bad boys in a new cubicle farm. You could always tell when they had been out drinking the night before; the air was filled with their escapades. Hmmm...is that Jack Daniels I smell? Hard liquor and the inner workings of the male digestive system is not a recipe that produces anything palatable. So toxic were those fumes that they could have been bottled and used as some type of repellant! The women who sat near the gas guys would burn candles at their desks to get through the day. I lived in fear that if I happened to walk by them right after they had just let-one-fly that the smell would cling to my hair or my clothes. Complaints were made to management; their pleas were largely ignored. What to do.

February 05, 2007

I love the movie Office Space. It is one of my favorites; one of those movies that can be watched over and over without distressed movie syndrome setting in. I guess when a movie speaks to your life you can see the same scenes and hear the same punch lines many times without getting tired of them. They keep hammering the same message to the viewer time and again. My favorite scenes in Office Space come from the main character's disdain for the cubicle he works in. Four walls that look just alike that compact a work space, including the life of the occupant.

I spent twenty two years of my professional life in a cubicle. The insurance industry is built on cubicles; they have so many of them that they are sometimes called cubicle farms. My first cubicle was actually a pseudo cubicle. It was constructed of my hard, cold metal desk, a bookcase in front of me, a bookcase to the left of me and another cold, hard metal desk behind me. The woman who sat behind me was great. We became friends. The guy who sat to my left was loud. The guy who sat in front of me was a smoker so my lungs were harassed on a daily basis by him. There was no such thing as privacy; only cold hard metal desks and bookcases for 8-10 hours a day. I knew more about my coworkers than I ever wanted to know. And I am sure they knew more about me than I wanted them to.

The psychology behind the cubicle fascinates me (I never liked being in a cubicle but I respect the fact that many employees make cubicles their homes for 40 hours a week. If you are cool with your cubicle, good for you). I always felt like a rat in a maze that was being watched for some bigger than life scientific study. Just tall enough to be able to see just over the cubicle walls, I could see where my colleagues were, when the boss was coming for the 3:50 p.m. cubicle check and when others were leaving early. I had a supervisor who would walk around every day at 3:50 to check the cubicles. My guess is that he wanted to see who was at their desk and who wasn't. Or maybe this daily ritual made him feel like the manager that he wasn't. What he didn't know was that we were onto him. Bosses, don't do cubicle checks when you are taller than the cubicle walls. We can see you coming. Being shorter than you we can hustle back to our cubicles before you get to them.